VST

Catalyst

Just one offering at the moment. I have some older plug-ins, and in time will re-release some of the legacy plug-ins. Like all of my plug-ins Catalyst aims to offer ease of use and an unusual design. Catalyst is a synth with a focus on creating interesting sounds by creating dynamically evolving waveshapes. Catalyst produces hybrid waveforms by taking two oscillators , applying half wave rectification, then sticking the results together. The design idea came from the book Electronic Music Circuits (Howard W. Sams & Co, 1982, Klein. B.). The concepts may not be that familiar, however the synth has been designed so that each control does something meaningful and useful, and programming becomes very intuitive. If you are so inclined there is also a manual to shed further light on what is going on under the hood. The short audio demo was created entirely with Catalyst – no external effects.

June 2013: Update. I appreciate user feedback and in response to a comment about the env mod control for the filter have adjusted the calibration of this control. The version of Catalyst on this site now features the newly calibrated env mod control.

Catalyst requires a VST host running in Windows.

Catalyst Facia

To install, download the zip file, unzip, then place in your VST instruments folder.

For an authentic Roland experience, why not try translating the manual into Japanese, then back into English?

6 thoughts on “VST

  1. Hi Tim, and greetings from Computer Music magazine! Could you please drop me an email at the CM office as soon as possible – we’d like to discuss featuring Catalyst in a forthcoming issue of the magazine. Many thanks.

  2. Hey,

    very nice synth. Pretty obscure but lots of fun as a sounddesigner. I have a question: could it be that the ENV AMT knob (GUI) on the left side of the filter is a little bit buggy?

    When I use the GUI version my env amt knob seems to do nothing even on full settings. While using a non gui version inside Reaper the env amt works like intended.

    Perhaps it´s just me. But if it´s a bug could you please fix it? This is a wonderful synth 🙂

    Cheers,
    Sebastian

    1. Thanks for the feedback and nice comments Sebastian. The env mod was pretty subtle, so I have tweaked it so that its effect is more apparent. I haven’t tested the synth in Reaper, but do know there is something a bit funky about the way Reaper handles some plug-ins; I have used it in the past to reveal hidden parameters in Humanoid Systems Scanned Synth. The updated version of Catalyst with the recalibrated env mod control is now available here.

      Tim

  3. Tim, Sorry, I know this is way off-topic, but it’s the only point of contact I could find. On your onld site (via the wayback machine), you had some material on Dr. T’s KCS. Were you using v5/Tiger, and if so, do you remember Step-Time record being broken? Still have the hw/sw? Pretty desperate to find any remaining KCS users who can confirm if this is/isn’t broken. Sorry for the intrusion 🙂
    Thanks
    ___
    Neil

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